Archive for May 26th, 2010

The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO) extracts and condenses the material that follows from Mexican and Central and South American on-line media sources on a daily basis. You are free to disseminate this information, but we request that you credit NAFBPO as being the provider.

“This Tuesday, Mexico expressed confidence that the military reinforcement of the common border by the United States will only be to combat organized crime and not to detain or pursue immigrants.” [Reflecting the widespread ignorance and misconceptions about Arizona’s Law SB1070, the article then continues.] “The migratory issue between Mexico and the United States was exacerbated due to the approval of a law by the state of Arizona, which entitles police agents to detain any person simply because of suspicion that he might be an illegal immigrant.”

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Prensa Libre (Guatemala City, Guatemala) 5/25/10

“Racist and exclusive?” Op/col. by Pedro Trujillo, titled as shown.

There is an energetic social movement against the famous law that the state of Arizona has passed against migrants and their criminalization. To start with, I don’t agree with limiting migration, and even less with taking measures that criminalize it. Having made that clear, let us bring into the open a political hypocrisy, not by the United States – if nothing else, they’re clear and blunt – but rather by certain governments, NGO’s [Non-Governmental Organizations] and social groups of countries that feel impacted by that law.

The Mexican constitution, the country which most demands from the United States because it is the one that has the most migrants in its territory, has an article, 11, which refers to “the pernicious foreigners residents of the country,” another, the 27th, which allows the Secretary of Relations to grant purchase permits for certain assets to foreigners, “as long as it is convenient,” a 32nd that says: “Mexicans will be preferred to foreigners in equality of circumstances, and for all employment, posts or commissions in which the status of citizenship is not indispensable.” Nor will foreigners be able to serve in the Army, or in Police forces; the 33rd is a bit more blunt: “The Executive of the Union shall have the exclusive power of making every alien abandon the national territory, immediately and without need for a previous court case, whose permanence it might judge convenient.”

Further, aliens will not be able to get involved in any way in the political affairs of the country. The Guatemalan is nothing less. It differentiates between citizens by origin and by naturalization, the latter having fewer rights, although the same obligations. It prefers Guatemalan workers in place of foreigners in the same conditions (102-n) or requires approval by the Executive to purchase properties or real estate in certain localities (122.) The “progressive “ Costa Rica has a special title for aliens, which impedes them from intervening in the country’s political affairs (title III) or doesn’t allow them to be union leaders or to have any authority within those organizations. Finally, the one of El Salvador also doesn’t allow that aliens participate, directly or indirectly, in the country’s internal politics, under penalty of losing their residence status (97,) holding them to a special law regarding the acquisition of certain properties (100 and 109.)

Many countries which clamor against that North American law have in their laws equal or larger impediments to the ones that the state of Arizona wants to implement. Nevertheless, there is no internal criticism to have them disappear. Who leads the migrants’ labor unions in the U.S., if not aliens? Who intervenes in the North American national politics, if not aliens? Who is the governor of California, if not an alien? Could all that take place in Latin countries? We point out the error in the neighbor to the north without seeing the disaster that we have in our own house. They, at least, are self critical and capable of accepting the national and foreign nonconformity. Would we be able to do it? Again, the dual morality, although in this instance it cannot be blamed on the gringos, it turns out that we have already learned what is political hypocrisy and how to manipulate public opinion with wails, sobs, references to human rights and other similar rubbish. Poor, miserable, and migrants, but not stupid. We Latinos are smart!

The “President of the Congress” of Guatemala, Roberto Alejos, confirmed that he will travel to Washington today (Tues.) along with the “presidents of the Legislative Powers of Central America and the Caribbean, to lobby in favor of an integral migratory reform in the United States and to show their rejection of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law.”

Alejos labeled as “stupid” the legal proposal for a law similar to Arizona’s in the state of Rhode Island.

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Milenio (Mexico City) 5/25/10

“The thing is that they don’t want us”Op/col. by Roman Revueltas, titled as shown.

The people rule. The people decide. The people vote. The people opines freely. That’s what takes place in the democracies. Or not? Well, take a look, the majority of the sovereign country of the United States (of America) supports the famous law promoted by the lady governor of Arizona and her allied congressmen. That is to say, our dear neighbors are in agreement that a person out on the street might be asked for papers for the simple appearance he has, his dress, the color of his skin, that is to say, because he looks like a Mexican. Even more, this law can multiply and reproduce itself in many of the other states of the American Union. I repeat: the citizens approve of it. So, the problem we have is not as simple as pointing out a governor who is in search of political gains, and denouncing the flagrantly racist character of her proposals. The issue is much more complicated: the Yankees do not want to live together with the Mexicans and do not want to have illegal immigrants in their land. That’s what they say. That’s what they think.

Of course, we reply. We brag about how they would suffer without their Mexican workers. We imagine them totally disabled and ruined without their dishwashers and their maids and their gardeners and their pizza deliverers and their errand boys and their low salary workers. Even more, we’ve produced a movie called “A day without Mexicans” in which the world’s most powerful country crumbles, purely and simply because there’s no one – “not even the Blacks, as (ex-Pres.) Fox would say,- who wants to unclog the sewer or clean the rugs of the hotels. But, excuse me, that fatal day has not arrived, and instead, what there is in that place is a feeling that we Mexicans should stay here, in our land, in lieu of setting ourselves up illegally in their country. In other words, they don’t want us. What are we going to do?

In Honduras, at least twelve employees of the National Registry of Persons “are involved in the crime of document traffic.” Seven of them have already been fired, while still others are suspected of providing documentation to aliens who use the country as a stepping stone “to legalize their route towards the United States.”

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El Imparcial (Hermosillo, Sonora) 5/25/10

More weed

Three different events in and around Nogales, Sonora, resulted in the seizure of 4,846 kilos of marihuana. The largest portion, 3,734 kilos, was found aboard a truck at the Mexican Customs facility.

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El Diario (Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua) 5/25/10

Migration of minors en route to the U.S. grows

The “Director of Inter-Institutional Relations” of Mexico’s INM (Federal immigration agency) reported an increase in the flow of minors who travel unaccompanied through Mexico. The INM reported 32,000 cases of minors traveling in Mexico en route to the United States; of these, 17,000 were unaccompanied minors who were returned to Mexico by U.S. officials. Another 5,050 cases involved non-Mexicans; of these, 3,000 were traveling alone. The majority of these came from Central American countries.

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El Porvenir (Monterrey, Nuevo Leon) 5/25/10

Dozens quit the Monterrey police force

More than fifty police officers of the city of Monterrey resigned this morning (Tues.) and 23 resigned Monday afternoon. The entire police force was held in quarters for two days over the weekend and forced to undergo a variety of tests. An additional number of resignations is expected later today. (M3 Report of yesterday relates.)